WikiLeaks asks: Who’s behind eight pseudo #WikiLeaks front groups?

Well let me tell you what I know about the people who disguise themselves with the WikiLeaks brand when in fact they aggressively smear it, subverting support, committing a fraud on the general public.

Mark Pickett or Goeder, or Goeder-Tarant (MGT) [1] in collaboration with Sigurdur Thordarson (ST) [2] set up WikiLeaks-Forum.com together in February 2011, owned by MGT.

Already in 2010 ST gave MGT access to the WikiLeaks Facebook Page where he closed down the existing forum and replaced it with the one he owned. A twitter account @wikileaks_forum [3], and numerous Facebook pages[4] were created, as well as a blog support-julian-assange.com [5] disguised as supportive groups. WikiLeaks name, logos, and relevant content articles were used to commit a fraud on the public. These fronts reached over 15,000 e-mail accounts, 180,000 Facebook news feeds, thousands more in Twitter, and through Support-Julian-Assange.com blog.

Thousands of members of the public became members of the forum, ‘liked’ the Facebook Pages, ‘followed’ the twitter account, believing them to be genuine supportive groups. Reality is very different.

Sigurdur Thordarson proved to be an informant used as a bait by the FBI to entrap WikiLeaks [6]. Mark Goeder Tarant tried to sell it to the highest bidder three times [7]. Then, when people realized he treated the WikiLeaks Facebook page as a personal channel to status and income and was kicked out of it in summer 2012, he turned openly anti-WikiLeaks with the help of four people [1] using the social media platforms under his control as fronts for smearing and subverting support to WikiLeaks.

He spread lies that Julian Assange was agent of the West trying to destabilize Middle East and impose regime change favouring the Muslim Brotherhood. He asserted Julian Assange was in no danger to being extradited to the US from Sweden [8]. In a series of posts shared at the Forum’s Facebook Staff Room he accused WikiLeaks of being a cult, of misrepresenting the facts of the Ecuadorian Embassy seize by the police [9] twisting the truth [10]. The twitter account started following “The Objectiviser” [11]. This known anti-WikiLeaks persona was asked to moderate his own board at the forum, cross-posting his anti Assange smears from the site wikiwacher.org.uk, owned by Alan Taylor [12] of the PGP Board. He is the notorious anti-WikiLeaks operative who back in 2010 had tried to present in his own forum, a group called ‘the Wikileaks insiders’ as a group of nameless but ‘credible’ WL/JA critics [13]. A scenario straight from the HB Gary anti-WL operations manual. [14]

In October 2012 a big lie was propagated that the whole operation was handed over to new owner David Viaine (Pathios) [15], author of ‘The day WikiLeaks died for me’. [16]. Around that time fake twitter account followers were purchased [17]. In fact the domain name registration had never changed hands, and David Viaine quit his involvement in January 2013 siting differences in politics and management style [18].

Dis-endorsement:

On the 17/01/2013, MGT claimed that the WikiLeaks “Syria Files” release would “support the destruction of an elected government” and stated that “our conscience won’t allow us to be a part of a propaganda war against a sovereign state.” And deleted the forum’s relevant Board [19]. The following day 18/01/2013 the WikiLeaks.org supporters page showed an update that remains to this day:

“The “WikiLeaks Forum” is not run or endorsed by WikiLeaks and has no connection to WikiLeaks whatsoever.”

[20]
On 26/01/2013 Admin Anon1984 published a post by ST explaining his role at the forum [21] and on 01/02/2013 yet another new ownership was announced that remained a secret [22].

WikiLeaks in their 07/02/2013 editorial ‘Eight FBI agents conduct interrogation in Iceland in relation to ongoing U.S. investigation of WikiLeaks’ profiled Siggi with: “There is strong indication that the FBI used a combination of coercion and payments to pressure the young man to co-operate.” [23] In August 2013 amidst revelations in the press by ST himself that he was a paid FBI informant, he returned to the forum yet again outlining his involvement in its creation to the applaud of MGT and helpers.

As the year went by the attacks continued against WL/JA [24], their supporters [25] as well as the newly fledged WikiLeaks Party. In September, despite all evidence to the contrary, MGT re-named the forum to WikiLeaks Supporters Forum mirroring the title of a rival forum [26].

After the failure to establish a Wikipedia Page in October 2013 [27] a forum post ‘Facts about the WikiLeaks Forum’ [28] was published, laden with wilful distortions of facts for example, no mention was made to the Forum’s Donation button [29] public’s financial contributions to MGT, his interest with the translation project, neither was any mention of income generated by the sale of back links, footer links [30]. Whether the new owner had paid for the site, remains a mystery.

A letter by ‘Friends of WikiLeaks’ [31] circulated among WikiLeaks supporters warning that the forum had turned anti-WikiLeaks. The WLF response was a most bizarre piece of theatre that ever existed. One of the MGT controlled Facebook Pages named FoWL (Friends of WikiLeaks), run by Jerri Barney posted an open Letter of Apology [32] to all those who had received the Warning Letter. Purchased Facebook Likes were employed to give the appearance that the post met with the approval of the public. [33].

WikiLeaks: ‘wikileaks-forum is a fraud’:

In response, WikiLeaks tweeted several messages through Oct/Nov and Dec 2013 explaining WLF and platforms controlled by MGT have nothing to do with WikiLeaks, they are a fraud on the public, they are e-mail harvesters [34].Attacks against WikiLeaks intensified further with posts like ‘Never mind the FBI, Assange is the Forums biggest troll’ [35].

In 2014 new evidence has come to light that Forum Admin Anon1984 had spoilt an Avaaz petition with over 2300 signatories subverting support for Julian Assange [36]. The #taiji and #seashepherd twitter hashtags were infiltrated to undermine support for the WikiLeaks Party due to National Council member strong involvement with that movement [37]. The WikiLeaks name and logos were used to deceive not only the support base but also the general public and media [38] by dabbling in WikiLeaks publishing work [39] and soliciting submissions [40].

Such people [1] have set up and operate the most dangerous set of fronts for an anti-WikiLeaks smearing operation at the same time misleading thousands of social media users and even journalists to confuse them with WikiLeaks. No stone must be left unturn to stop this fraud on the public.